I used to tell folks that the interview process would take about an hour, but that is proving to no longer be the case. I should change my pitch as it occasionally goes well over that mark. For example, I spent four hours with Rose! We talked in her kitchen over a very tasty homemade smoothie. Then we chatted in her backyard, serenaded by the birds and the neighbor's welding project. We later moved into her living room for the recording portion. And, finally, out into her front yard for the photos. And I can assure you we were not just talking about the weather. I am so grateful to Casey for connecting us together. Rose offered me nugget after nugget of inspiration, hope, and encouragement and told me many powerful stories about her journey through this life. I hope you'll get a sense of the power and impact in our conversation as you read or listen below. Rose has wonderful things in store. Keep your eyes out.
Who are you and how would you describe yourself?
I think my biggest, I guess, unique thing is people would say that, She's a chef. It's a very predominant part of my life as it was my career for a very long time, but also it's my hobby. So, when I'm with my friends, there's often cooking food, farmers markets - things like that. So, I would say I'm a chef. But I'm also a mom to an amazing seven-year-old boy and I'm a wife to my husband and a friend. But, if I had to talk on a little bit of a deeper level, who I really am is a connector. I think we're here for connection on this planet and so I'm a connector. I like to connect in everything that I do. I'm a connector.
What matters to you?
Oh, gosh. I would say the number one thing that matters to me is connection. Obviously, I just kind of said that. But what goes hand in hand for connection, with me, is healing. I think that one of the biggest downfalls in the world today is the amount of wounding that we're all carrying. And so, when we're wounded and we don't heal, we pass on that wounding to the next generation and to everyone we're in contact with. And so, what matters to me most is healing and, therefore, then you're able to connect. I think that true connection happens when you can heal.
Where does your motivation come from?
I think I've always been a very active, involved person. I'm super passionate when I get excited about something, I kind of go all the way. And I grew up in a large, dysfunctional family with a ton of wounding and I lived my life for a very long time very wounded, personally. And, about ten years ago, I began a healing journey and that healing journey has transformed my life. I know that when I experience something that is so transformative, I want everyone that I come into contact with to also have that opportunity. And so, I'm very motivated by sharing that experience and wanting everyone to just be as healthy as they can be. And I say healthy rather than happy. I think there's this expectation of happiness and then if people aren't happy then they're like, Oh, I'm not happy and I should be. But I think that if you are only looking for the emotion of happiness, then you're discounting all the other emotions, which are each equally valuable to the full life experience. And so, I'm not only looking to be happy; I'm looking to feel emotions deeply and to feel deeply connected to those around me. All of the emotions. And that one is not necessarily better or worse than the other and there's value in the quietness, the stillness, the melancholy, the sadness, the grieving, the exuberance, the passionate joyfulness, and the happiness. There's benefit in all aspects of it. And to become depressed because you're not happy is... I don't know, there's just something that doesn't fit there for me.
What do we mean to each other, individual to individual?
Well, I'm gonna end up sounding woo-woo eventually at some point in this interview, so I'm just gonna bring it on (laughs). I truly believe that our souls have many lives. I do believe that I've had many lives. I'm believe I'm gonna have many more. I believe this is merely one physical body that I am inhabiting for this lifetime. And I believe that souls are hear to learn and heal and that we need each other to do our healing and our learning from. And that on some level, in some way, we have chosen the players in this lifetime to do our healing and our work through and with and so, I believe I chose my parents; I believe my son chose me; I believe I chose my husband; I believe I chose you to sit across on this day, this afternoon, and exchange words and energy and healing and thoughts with to learn from. And so, I think that we mean everything to our soul's purpose in this particular lifetime.
What does community mean to you?
I believe that when we're in community we are leaning in so much closer out of necessity for survival and not just physical survival of our bodies and our, you know, eating, or clothing or keeping warm, but in our survival of our souls - that we are really supporting each other and being there for all members. And that by leaning in, we're really able to connect and see the suffering of another. And it's really hard to hate somebody from really close up because you see their humanity and you see all the interplay of how similar you actually are. And, in community, you can be seen and you can see another. And I think that, historically, the need for physical survival manifested the situation where people lived in tight-knit usually circles together. You know, American Indian villages were a ring of tipis very close together, which was good for safety, for heat, for resource-sharing. And there was a communal kitchen in the middle - all food resources were shared together. And they did that out of necessity of survival, but what manifested was a connection to each other. If a husband was wounded and killed, that mother and her children were not left alone; they stayed in that community and they were provided for and she was protected and her children were raised along with all the other children. And it was so much easier to really see when someone was suffering and had a need because they were right there within your own community. And so, therefore, that suffering and that need didn't turn into devastation and isolation and depression and aloneness and starvation - because it was right there.
Community, for me, is about proximity of physical being, but also about proximity of being in each other's energetic space. It's about love. It's about connection. It's about, you know, we all have these circles around us, of our immediate circle that we would do anything for. That phone call in the middle of the night that you would literally do whatever for this person. And you can probably think of the people in your head that you would do that for right now. You know, my son, my husband, my very best friends - no matter what, I would be there for them in a heartbeat. If they went homeless, they could move in with me - kind of energy. But not everybody in our world has a circle around them that they're included in that kind of a safety net. And so, when they do go homeless, there's not a house for them to go to; there's not a safety net to hold them. And as long as all of us go through our lives only being willing to care that much about our immediate circle because we happen to be close to them, we know them, we're blood relation or friendship relations, then people fall through the cracks in our community.
So, I have this theory that we all need to be willing to do whatever it takes - obviously for our immediate - but to have another layer outside of that circle that encompasses and covers the people who are not covered by their own circle because they just don't have it. So that they don't fall through the cracks. And what does that look like? What could that look like? And for me, it looks like, Do you have a room in your house where someone could stay temporarily between rentals in your community? If you were to lose your house, I don't know you that well, but I know that you're safe around my child and my husband and you were between houses for a month, would I be willing to let you stay in my house and I don't know you that well? The answer is yes. Do I have more clothes than I need and I find out a woman in my neighborhood is going on a job interview - am I willing to give her some of my clothes? Yes, yes I am. Like, it's about saying I'm willing to use the resources that I have to help people like they were my very best friends and my family - that I would do without even thinking if they needed it - am I willing to do that for someone that I don't know? For someone outside my immediate circle? So that they're covered, too? Because if they're not covered, then what are we doing? Then they're falling through the cracks. Then they're homeless. Then they're in homeless shelters. Then children are being raised in camps on the side of the road. And we're proliferating wounding. Is that a super long answer (laughs)?
I'm thrown off by pervasive individualism and greed. I'm very opposed to this. But sometimes I wonder who am I to say that this other way that I feel, with my morals and values, is the more correct way? What is the individualism and the greed about?
I have something to say about that. I think that when people are wounded, they're looking for salves. They're looking for a way to make themself feel better. And marketers know that. And so they come out with literally advertisements that make you feel like shit about yourself so that you'll buy their product. You know, the spray of the man who all the women are fawning over and it literally is a spray that has pheromones in it that women will be attracted to you. And I'm just thinking about the man who is at home, who feels unattractive, who feels alone, who wishes women noticed him, and seeing that, buying into that, and buying that product. And I think that 90% of the products that are available to us are sold with this underlying undertone of You're not enough. You'd would be enough or you'd be more close to enough if you bought our product. And I truly believe that if we got healing that we would see that we are enough just as we are. And the desire to purchases and to have... the yacht?! What is that about? That is one big ego boost for somebody who has some very large interior belief that they are not enough just as they are. And I'm not saying it would not be super fun to spend a week on a yacht in the Caribbean, but there is a part of all of that opulence and that grandeur and that stuff...
You know, I walk into a place like Hobby Lobby and I'm like, That looks like one nine-month-later garage sale where everything is ten cents. It's junk. It is absolute junk. It looks like a warehouse in China where everything's made for 99 cents and then we're over here selling it for $9.99 and literally nine months from now we're gonna be selling it for a dollar in our driveway. Like, it's junk. And this need for stuff fills our need for ourself. And this incredible writer, Geneen Roth, says, You can never have quite enough of what you don't really want. And I believe we keep buying and buying and buying stuff to try to fill ourselves, but that's not really what we want. And so there's never gonna be enough. So we're gonna just keep buying it. And I think it comes right back down to healing. The healthier I get, the more I know that I'm enough, the more I realize what's really important: which is connection, which is healing, which is people, which is relationships. Then I'm looking to make purchases that facilitate that. Like, do I need a longer table for my deck so that I can have 12 people over for dinner? Like, that's a purchase that facilitates connection, inclusivity, and people coming over. You know, beginning to make choices based on that filter of, Does it bring me more of what I do really want? And I think that if people had healing they'd buy a whole lot less shit.
On the opposite of what matters to you question, what concerns you?
Oh my gosh. Child abuse. Child abuse concerns me. Because child abuse turns into an adult who's so wounded that their survival mechanism is usually more wounding of other people. And I think child abuse is my biggest heart-breaker. And it concerns me how much has gone on historically, you know, for thousands of years, and how much continues to go on to this day. And how we have not found a solution for it. We haven't found enough of a remedy for it. I feel like the advancements we've made towards stopping child abuse have been miniscule. And it really is this cycle, right; most people who abuse children were abused themselves. So most children who are abused, supposedly, become our next round of abusers. So, the way to stop child abuse is to heal adults who are abusing, so they'll stop abusing and the next... we get healthier by generation and not sicker. So, I would say child abuse concerns me because it infiltrates everything. You know? I think Trump was severely abused.
Do you have a sense of purpose?
(Laughs) I do. I have a ridiculous amount of a sense of purpose. And I pretty much have such a sense of purpose that I'm not interested in doing anything unless it's on purpose. Anymore. At all. Of any kind. I'm really excited that even though I feel like I know what my purpose is today, with the project I'm about to launch and how I'm showing up in my community today, I also know that I have no idea what my purpose is going to be throughout the rest of my life and that I am going to be shown what my next purpose is and the next level or the next project or the next focus of my attention is going to be. So, I don't feel like it's something that's stagnant. I don't feel like we have one purpose in our lifetime that then you hunker down and just do that one thing. I think that my purpose is to live on purpose. And if I'm living on purpose, then I'm making choices about what I'm gonna connect with and do and manifest. And, you know, the job I'm gonna have that's gonna earn my money is gonna be on purpose and, therefore, it's going to do immeasurably good in the world and I'm going to be fulfilled by doing it. And then I might be done with that. And then I might move on to the next thing I'm called to, if it's on purpose. But that it will always be of service to my own healing first and healing of others second.
What do you want more of in your life?
(Sigh) I want more collaboration. I've been working on this project for two years now; we're about to launch. But there's a lot of long days at my computer, which is the opposite of how I like to work. And I cannot wait until the project, the company, is profitable enough that I can have a team of people that I work with to be in true collaboration. Because I get jazzed up when I connect with others in a really unique, uplifting way, and I'm looking forward to working with people who are also on their purpose and to manifest a workplace where people are there because it's on purpose for them; it's not just a job. So, I want more connection in my life. Certainly in the work arena; I have a lot of connection in my personal friendships and my family, but I want more work collaboration.
Do you have a few words to say about your project?
Sure. So, I'm a chef - I said that at the beginning - and I have been working for two and a half years to launch a website called TrueYouFood.com. And it is a learning-to-cook whole, real foods website. We filmed 120-something cooking videos, teaching people how to cook with whole, real foods. My primary focus, initially, is marketing it to people who have had weight-loss surgery because they're at a huge shift in their life where they've spent most of their lives eating processed foods and then they have this life-changing surgery, but they have to begin eating whole, home-cooked meals pretty much as soon as they get home from the hospital and they don't know how to do that. So, marketing it to them because of the great need that's out there for them. And really wanting to show up for them after they've just shown up for themselves in a huge way. I'm super-passionate about people eating in ways that nourishes their body, in ways that tell their body that they matter, that they're paying attention to it, that they love it. And I think eating whole, real foods is a way to do that.
Do you have anything else that you'd like to put out there?
I think because this project is called A Community Thread, something that I love is seeing the connection from one interview to the next interview; you know, how you got to the person that you're interviewing. I just think it's such a cool thing that you're doing because I have this belief that if we could be out in outer space looking back at the Earth that there'd be this huge net, you know, and that all of us are on that net as human beings. And the entire net has these intersecting crosses where the fabric of the net crosses each other to create it and that every single one of us is a little, tiny X on that net. And so, you and I, our lines just crossed today for the first time. We met for the first time. But essentially that entire net is connected in some way. And so, your thread is literally like a thread on that net around the world. And you're making all of these connections, but really giving people an opportunity to hear a story - words, depth, truth, an opinion - from somebody else who's on that net with them. So, I think it's really neat you're doing this. So, thank you.